India presents 10-point formula to address UN peace mission challenges

|HT|

India has presented a 10-point formula to address security and operational challenges faced by United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world, a little more than a month after two peacekeeping troops were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ruchira Kamboj, India’s permanent representative to the UN, outlined the proposal while addressing a Security Council briefing on peacekeeping operations on Tuesday. Such missions, she said, were becoming increasingly challenging in “the face of growing violence across conflict theatres, with a diminishing focus on the political process”.

India has provided more than 260,000 troops and personnel for UN peacekeeping missions over six decades, and it is currently one of the largest troop and police contributors. More than 5,700 Indian peacekeepers are deployed with nine of the 12 UN peacekeeping missions.

A total of 177 Indian peacekeepers have died while serving with peacekeeping missions, the highest of any troop-contributing country. Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel serving with a peacekeeping mission in Congo were killed when protestors attacked their camp in July.

Kamboj said it is critical to reassess the UN Security Council’s approach towards peacekeeping and address security and operational challenges faced by such operations.

She said peacekeeping missions should be given “clear and realistic mandates” that are matched with adequate resources. Problems arise because troop and police-contributing countries do not have a role in the decision-making process and this anomaly should be rectified, she said. “The [Security] Council needs to avoid terminologies and formulations while crafting mission mandates that may generate false hopes and expectations,” she added.

Peacekeeping missions should be “deployed prudently, with full recognition of their limitations” and all stakeholders should be helped to understand the mandate of peace operations, she said. Coordination with host governments will help address misinformation and disinformation against peacekeepers and enhance their safety, Kamboj said.

There should be “all-out efforts to bring the perpetrators of crimes against peacekeepers to justice”, Kamboj emphasised. She added the UN should ensure that the proposed memorial wall for fallen peacekeepers at the world body’s headquarters is installed urgently.

Kamboj said establishing trust and smooth coordination between a peacekeeping mission’s leadership and the host state is essential for achieving the goals of operations. The role of women peacekeepers “cannot be overemphasised in effective peacekeeping” and India deployed the first all-women peacekeeping contingent in Liberia in 2007, which “inspired a whole generation of Liberian women to take part in the country’s security sector”, she said.

India has called for introducing advanced technology in peacekeeping missions to overcome security challenges. In 2021, India supported the rolling out of the “Unite Aware” platform to enhance the safety of peacekeepers and signed an MoU with the UNC4ISR Academy for Peace Operations in Uganda to meet its technology needs.

Peacekeeping operations are collective endeavours and the performance of all mission components, military and civilians, and its leadership should be considered while evaluating a mission, she said.

Kamboj emphasised that the “need for addressing the insecurity of civilians caused by terrorist groups cannot be ignored”, but pointed out that a host government has the primary responsibility to protect civilians from non-state groups across its territory.

A regional approach is imperative for resolving armed conflicts and building collective security against transnational threats posed by terror groups, and the Security Council should support the role of regional and sub-regional organisations in mediation, monitoring of ceasefires, assistance in implementing peace accords, and post-conflict rebuilding.

Kamboj said peacekeeping missions should factor in an “exit strategy from their very inception”. “There are several examples of redundant peacekeeping missions which continue to be a drain on UN’s depleting resources. Given the spate of spiralling conflict zones across the global landscape, retention of redundancy at the cost of minimising efficiency in other critical peacekeeping operations is uncalled for,” she said.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)